If this sweetening process is so awesome, why doesn't everyone use it?

In search of a sweetening option that can handle small amounts of sulphur, has a low capital cost, and a favorable turn-down ratio? Everyone is looking for that.

One operator has the luxury of starting a large green-field project and needs to solve the low volume sweetening problem. He included a sulphur recovery review in his application.

He described the sweetening method he chose in detail and contrasted in with others for his needs. You can see why he chose this sweetening method.

You can see all his deliberations and his final decision in his application documents. Help yourself through our self-serve secure check out.

Don't forget to check out his subsequent related applications for updates to the sulphur recovery solution.

Holy Grail of Sweetening

Flexibility. Great turn-down ratio. High recovery. Low cost. Can you get everything?

There are many different types of sweetening and sulphur recovery processes. Finding the one that is right for your project might be tricky.

Turn-down ratio

Turn-down ratio defines how little acid gas you can run compared to the name plate processing volume.

Most conventional sulphur plants can't run acid gas volumes at less than 30% of original design. But if your sour gas supply dwindles below your turn-down, you must treat it somehow -- you can't just flare it.

Some plants are faced with poor sulphur recovery conversion at very low flows. Alberta's sulphur recovery guidelines won't stand for that.

Of course, there are technology solutions. But interestingly, there are also regulatory solutions for this problem.

Check out the results

Rather than just taking the salesman's word, you can check out plants that are using several different processes. Investigate plants that are already using your target technology. You might find out its real operational viability.

Textbooks and classes may help you understand a bit about sulphur recovery processes. But if you really want to understand how they perform in the field, you must find the sulphur recovery applications documents. They report on which recovery process is used to the regulator. Each application is ground truthed to actual UWIs. Each application is adjudicated by a picky regulator.

Tags: Facilities

Granger Low  18 Apr 2017

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